While playing the Beta as a Barb i picked up a random weapon from memory it was white (could be wrong) with a stat that read "+36% increased damage" written in grey, not the standard blue. The weapon had no other stats save the normal DPS amount.

My question is this, do % damage increases on weapon effect all the players ability's or just the weapon?

From equipping / un-equipping the weapon my barb's over all DPS only changed by the amount of DPS shown of my new weapons tooltip. The % increase seemed to make no difference.

My first thought was it has increase only the weapons DPS and the tool tip has adjusted to suit. But whats the point in that? i thought the DPS on weapons was randomized anyway, why add this stat on the tooltip? they should just hide it in the background, its just confusing.

i finished the beta with every class and got the barb to 13, in that time i didn't see a single other weapon with a stat like this.

Yes, the damage listed on the weapon is the damage after the +36% was factored in. If it didn't have +36%, the damage listed would have been lower, as you would have seen if you picked up a weapon of the same type with no +36% modifier.

Same goes for weapons with "adds damage" or "increased attack speed" modifiers - They already get factored in for the listed damage and attack speed.

Just to confirm, yes, if something increases the stats of your weapon then your skills will get better as well. Damage and attack speed bonuses that spawn on your weapon will already be factored into your weapon's displayed damage, APS and DPS.

it just seems strange to me that blizzard would put this on the tool tip as all it does is simply increase the DPS why not just increase it and leave the + % damage increase hidden in the background code same for + attack speed. i dont think the tooltip needs to have it on. just look at the weapons attacks per sec and DPS.

i can understand + fire / poison damage but the basic dmg increase i dont think needs to be shown and is confusing to my noobness.